Death of a Catholic University
Published: Thursday, November 15, 2012
Updated: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 20:11
Recently, an article in Scholastic Magazine sought to answer the question: “Is Notre Dame Catholic Enough?” The author referenced the deeply troubling book by law professor Charles Rice, “What Happened to Notre Dame,” as well as Pope John Paul II’s apostolic constitution on Catholic Universities, “Ex Corde Ecclesiae.”
At the very least, Notre Dame can be called, as philosophy professor Alfred Freddoso calls it, “something like a public school in a Catholic neighborhood.” With dozens of chapels, countless Masses, active Campus Ministry and Catholic-centered health services, Notre Dame provides an extremely Catholic neighborhood.
These things do not make a university a Catholic university. Usually, when Notre Dame’s Catholic identity is attacked, my friends reference these “neighborhood aspects” in defense. These are all good and necessary parts of a Catholic university, but they fail to justify why we are a Catholic university qua “university.” We must look at the formation of the education, considering curriculum and faculty hiring.
It may be troubling that in 2009 the University stopped publishing the percentage of Catholic faculty at Notre Dame. Between 1985 and 2000, the percentage of Catholic faculty in the College of Arts & Letters had decreased by about 20 percent. In 2007, only half of the faculty overall identified as Catholic. The University’s 2012 “Report on Catholic Mission” omits this fact, but it does include the 5 percent decrease in students identifying as Catholic over the last 10 years. More than 80 percent of Notre Dame’s students identify as Catholic, but this is not sufficient to guarantee a robust Catholic university. If an institution is interested in providing a “Catholic education,” we ought to be more interested in the Catholic identity of those providing the education.
Nonetheless, we can turn to “Ex Corde Ecclesiae” to consider our Catholic identity, as Professor Matthew Ashley, chair of the theology department, does in the Scholastic article. He refers to the document and claims that Notre Dame fits its description of the Catholic university. However, he glosses over one of the most obvious discrepancies between the theology department and the vision of Ex Corde. The document requires: “Catholics who teach the theological disciplines in a Catholic university are required to have a mandatum granted by competent ecclesiastical authority.” While many members of the theology department do have this mandatum, others have openly opposed such a requirement. When I called the department as a prospective student in order to inquire about the mandate, I was informed that I would have to contact individual professors to discover which ones had it. The University said finding a professor who would teach Catholic theology was my responsibility.
The state of our curriculum offers little consolation. Students at Notre Dame are required to take two theology and two philosophy courses. However, there is no guarantee that any kind of positive exposure to the intellectual tradition of the Church will be provided. I regularly hear from students that their Introduction to Theology professors were quite antagonistic towards Church teaching. I am shocked at the number of Notre Dame students who have never read Aquinas, or make claims about “Catholic identity” without having read Ex Corde.
There are exceptions. However, in a 1989 article, PLS professor Janet Smith wrote: “Some of the faculty would be most dismayed to learn that conversions have taken place . . . Again, the students are generally much better educated than their peers but they fall far short of being examples of the kind of student one would want to have graduate from a Catholic university. For instance, they would not be able to explain with much clarity the relation of faith and reason or of nature and grace; they would have virtually no idea why Catholicism claims to be the one true faith; few would be determined to live a committed Catholic life. Some, of course, may have these abilities but it is not the case that such is our goal.”
Is this our goal? Do we provide a Catholic education? Is this a Catholic university? Ask seniors: “What is the relation of faith and reason? Of nature and grace? Why does Catholicism claim to be the one true faith? Do you live a committed Catholic life?”
Christopher Damian is a senior. He can be reached at cdamian1@nd.edu
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
22 comments
2. It's incredibly unjust to blame the falling Catholic-ness of Notre Dame on the faculty. Why not take a look at how the students are acting? Take a football weekend, for example. Are students comporting themselves with temperance and chastity? Are they seeking to name themselves as Catholic by their actions as well as their words? Just because a professor stands in front of a classroom and says that the Church teaching on such and such should be modified does not mean that Notre Dame is no longer one of the most Catholic universities in the world. The real problem lies in that a generation of Catholics is born and raised to believe in the faith without ever questioning why they believe what they believe and thinking that they can do whatever they want as long as they go to dorm Mass every Sunday night. I try to find the Catholicism of the University in the ways and words of her members, not in the statistics of how many faculty members say they're Catholic.
I don't mean what people might think I mean by this: homophobia, misogyny, etc., etc.No.What I mean is a deep appreciation for the experience of God, the possibility of relationship with God and revelation of God's will, the openness and full use of human reason (math, science, liberal arts, social sciences--everything we study in college) to articulate and share our experience of God in Christ. That in essence is faith seeking understanding. Faith and the experience of God (church, retreats, spirituality) not confined in a vacuum (me, the Bible, Jesus, and yoga) that are put into full dialogue with everyday life and the world around us (philosophy, economics, psychology). This is an approach that sees a unity between spirit and matter and between faith and reason. But no. The real culprit at the end of the day isn't anyone's lack of a mandatum but rather the unwillingness of students to unite their experience of God with intellectual rigor. We are more than content to do "spiritual" private things or emotional retreats or youth group stuff, but we don't try to integrate that in any intellectually rigorous way with our studies. This is the root of all irrational discourse which favors spirituality over religion and which leads either to the irrelevance of faith (secularism) or to a fundamentalism that disregards the intellect. At Notre Dame you find both.
"The mandatum should not be construed as an appointment, authorization, delegation, or approbation of one's teaching by church authorities. Theologians who have received a mandatum are not catechists; they teach in their own name in virtue of their baptism and their academic and professional competence, not in the name of the Bishop or of the Church's magisterium (Application: Article 4, 4, e, ii).In accord with canon 812, the mandatum is an obligation of the professor, not of the university."Catholic theological disciplines" in this context signifies Sacred Scripture, dogmatic theology, moral theology, pastoral theology, canon law, liturgy, and church history (cf. canon 252)."AppendixSample Mandatum DraftAttestation of the Professor of Catholic Theological DisciplinesI hereby declare my role and responsibility as a professor of a Catholic theological discipline within the full communion of the Church.As a professor of a Catholic theological discipline, therefore, I am committed to teach authentic Catholic doctrine and to refrain from putting forth as Catholic teaching anything contrary to the Church's magisterium."
And Notre Dame has Steubenville's Catholic culture and a whole lot more. The thing is Notre Dame is not an exclusively Catholic seminary or monastery. It is not a sectarian institution. We are not Bob Jones University. If you want that, you can find colleges like that all over the country that reject faculty and students outside their specific denomination. ND gladly hires non-Catholics and admits non-Catholic students. We'd be less Catholic if we didn't.And your ignorance about faculty hiring is enormous. Just a few years ago there were all kinds of viewpoint letters about Catholic faculty at ND. The administration wants more Catholics on the faculty, but they have to be excellent. We've stolen quite a few Catholic scholars over the years from elite institutions, but it is hard to bring them to South Bend. At the end of the day, a Baptist, Muslim, or Jewish scholar committed to ND's mission is preferable to a nominal Catholic. The mandatum is a private matter between bishop and theologian. It is not a certification or a diploma publicly displayed as in doctors' offices. You demonstrate genuine concern for ND, but your criticisms are not original or even grounded in reality. You are repeating the errors of conservative websites that do not understand Notre Dame, theology, Ex Corde Ecclesiae.
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